1. Field of the Invention
The disclosures herein relate to a thermal head unit and a thermal printer.
2. Description of the Related Art
A thermal printer prints images by heating and driving a thermal head. With a thermal print unit having such a thermal head and platen, a compact thermal printer is easy to manufacture because the number of components is relatively small. Because of this, thermal printers are widely used in cash registers, portable terminal devices, ATMs (automatic teller machines), etc.
A thermal head is typically connected to a flexible substrate to form a thermal head unit. The flexible substrate of the thermal head unit is then connected to the core structure of a thermal printer. Control of image printing is performed through the flexible substrate.
Thermal printers used in the applications as previously described are required to have small numbers of components and to be manufactured at low cost. Especially, a thermal head unit inclusive of a thermal head is desired to be available at low cost.
Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide a thermal head unit that is manufactured at low cost by reducing the number of components constituting the thermal head unit and by reducing the number of steps of the production process. It may also be desirable to provide a low-cost thermal printer that employs such a thermal head unit.    [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-27290